DeRegniers - Beatrice Freedman - Montgomery InGenWeb Project

By Karen Zach, Around the County

Thursday, April 2, 2020 5:40 AM

Have any of you ever read the delightful children’s book How Joe the Bear and Sam the Mouse Got Together? It’s my all-time favorite. It tells a wonderful story about how two fellas who are totally different finally discover (they couldn’t ride bikes because one rode fast and one rode slow for example) something that the two of them could do – eat ice cream . . . together!

Joe and Sam have wonderful large, bold, cute as can be, ahead of their time illustrations by Brinton Turkle and should have won a Caldecott Award. Yet, the biggest plus of this awesome book is that the Lafayette-born author grew-up in Crawfordsville.

Beatrice Freedman was one of three children born to tailor, Harry and wife, Sophia (Feinstein) Freedman. Born Aug. 16, 1914, she came to Crawfordsville with her parents when not yet seven. Here she grew-up. She had one older sister, Lillian and a younger brother, Daniel. Sadly, none of the three remained in Montgomery County, Lillian married and lived her life in Washington; Daniel X became equally famous with his sister, serving as a well-known pioneer researcher in physical and chemical abnormalities of the brain. One of his main discoveries was that autistic children have elevated levels of serotonin in their brain. When “Danny” applied to Harvard, a great many young Jewish men did as well with only 2 percent accepted but Dan made the cut easily. Certainly, he is one man Harvard should hold dear.

Beatrice was one of the most active in her senior class, serving in the Quill & Scroll; NHS; Classical Club; Sunshine Society; Science Clubs; Dramatic Club; Gold & Blue staff, being editor in chief her senior year; and Speech Arts Club. Graduate of 1931 (see photo). Her specialty was feature stories. Almost immediately upon graduation from CHS, she headed-off to Chicago to college. While at the University of Chicago and University of Illinois, she studied Sociology.

In 1934, she was in Chicago as her mother wrote to her, “Dear Beebsie” on the Harry Freedman Cut-Price Clothing (109 N. Washington) Letterhead and hoped she seen amusements but “gpa’ was coming to Chicago and Sophia wanted her daughter to return with him. Not long afterward, she went to LaHavre France to study. When returning, she left her passport there. Luckily, she had sufficient identification so they let her back in the country upon her return in February of 1936. Next, she attended graduate school and mastered in Education. The next February on the 27th, she married William P. Schenk. They are found the next year in the 1940 census living at the Hull House, which was a large home for immigrants to study and live briefly. They may have been there for her to do social work or teach of an evening as they both had jobs in the publishing field. He went to the service while she worked and their divorce made Illinois history.

Couldn’t find any news articles of the marriage but the ending to it was something quite publicized. In 1945, she was in Egypt with the UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. She wrote a deposition to be divorced as Schenk had abandoned her when he was earlier home in 1943. Judge Michael Feinberg was not inclined to grant it however, until … (drum roll) ... he learned that another deposition from the husband stationed in Greenland said okay to the divorce. This was quite unusual and when the judge found the divorce would make Illinois history (by deposition was not super uncommon, yet done by two out of the country by deposition was new) – granted! The divorce hit the papers all over the country (mainly along with Sonja Henie’s against millionaire Dan Topping) and oddly, Beatrice would keep William’s last name for eternity as her middle writing name after her second and long-lasting marriage, even though they had no children and I don’t believe a book was published until well after that; however, thinking theory here, she may have had some in the works or out to publishers under Beatrice Schenk then added her DeRegniers when married to Francis.

However, his real name was not DeRegniers but Leon Goliger born July 11, 1911 in Beirut, Syria, described as being 5’11”, olive-skinned with brown eyes and hair and on April 26, 1946 he came to NY permanently as Leon with “Mrs. Goliger,” going to Crawfordsville, Indiana with her father, Harry Freedman as his sponsor. When “Leon” was naturalized, on January 3, 1952 part of his process included his name change although he had basically gone by Francis DeRegniers since he took out his social security card exactly five years earlier. Why DeRegniers I’ve not been able to discover; it is obviously French and they were involved with that country multi-times over but whether it was a town, friend, mentor, writer, I don’t know.

A brilliant man, Francis DeReigners (pronounced Drain-yay) worked his way up quite quickly to the managership of Air France. He of course traveled a great deal but Beatrice was with him often, especially in the 50s and 60s travelling from their New York City home at 18 W. 58th Street to France.

In 1942-43, the tiny, effervescent dark-haired “elfin wisp of a person,” was a professional dancer with the Eloise Moore Dance Group; a copywriter for Scott-Foreman in 43-44 and while in Egypt where she met her second and final husband of close to 50 years, she was a Welfare Officer. She also did copyright work for the American Book Company and created educational materials for the American Heart Association from 1949-61. While writing her close to 50 children’s books and multiple articles, she mainly worked with Scholastic where she created the Lucky Book Club and edited materials for them. Through the next 30 or so years, she worked Tuesday-Friday with Scholastic and took Mondays off for her own writing and travelling for book promotions and conferences. Another couple of my favorite books of hers is the Abraham Lincoln Joke Book which is absolutely amazing – every time I shelved it when I was Children’s Librarian at CDPL, I’d have to sit and nab a few jokes. Also, her autobiographical book is adorable. She goes through many possible “Homes to yourself” such as a tree house, under her mother’s dining room table, with a large hat on – places to get away by yourself for awhile.

Her poems, stories and other writings often are seen in anthologies and to this day although she’s been gone 20 years she is still held in high regard as a children’s writer. And, the best thing about it, Beatrice Freedman Schenk (Goliger) DeRegniers grew-up in our own Crawfordsville, Indiana!

Karen Zach is the editor of Montgomery Memories, our monthly magazine all about Montgomery County. Her column, Around the County, appears each Thursday in The Paper of Montgomery County.